Comment by agotterer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by agotterer | Hacker News Reader

This logic is the same as saying that an ATM has a software bug and if it spits out too much money it's okay to keep it. The reason being that the "intent" of the machine was programmed to dispense that amount of money. That still feels like stealing to me.

I also think the author misrepresents that the only purpose of the blockchain is to eliminate the central governing body. There are many other value propositions and uses for the technology. Here's just a few:

- Eliminates financial overhead and operational complexity for banking.

- Personal information control. Like profiles or identity data.

- Distributed network to sell things with trust

- Access to public records

- The author shoots down the value of ICO's. But the blockchain can offer a significantly cheaper alternative to clearing costs for equites.

And there so much other potential...

Computers don't lie, code doesn't lie. The idea of smart contacts is literally that code is law. If the code is flawed, that flaw is law. As soon as you try to wrap intent, disposition, and other legalities into the equation, how is a "smart contract" anything unique?

This was exactly my (the author) point.

But that doesn't make ATM's or the blockchain any less useful. The technology is still sound in both cases. But anything built by humans (I suppose machines too?) has the potential to be flawed, especially software.

There is a difference between an ATM and blockchain app though.

If an ATM spits out too much money and that violates the terms of service you signed with the bank (or the ATM provider) the bank has a way to recover the funds since they can rely on the legal system to enforce the terms.

The blockchain exists to enforce the validity of state changes (transactions). There is no other value outside of that.

Thus, if you are reliant on the legal system to enforce blockchain contracts there is no reason to have a contract on the blockchain since the only real benefit is decentralized consensus. You are better off just rolling a few EC2 instances and writing an old fashioned contract.

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